


as a goodbye

by respoftw



Series: 35 Ways To Say I Love You In The Pegasus Galaxy [35]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Sentient Atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 13:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8535331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: Endings are inevitable.





	

Goodbyes were inevitable.  It didn’t matter how long a lifespan lasted, the inevitability of endings, of partings, of goodbyes was as real for these impossibly young New Lanteans as it was for her.

Atlantis had known from the moment that the one they called Elizabeth and the one they called Colonel had stepped through the astria porta that these children would leave, just as the others had.  The only surprise left to Atlantis was just how much it hurt when that day inevitably came.

She had come to admire these children, these New Lanteans.  Grudgingly, at first; the attempts by the group of people they called scientists to harmonise their ugly, clumsy technology with her own had been jarring and unpleasant and she was sure it was doomed to fail.  These people had surprised her, the first time of many, by succeeding.

At first there were only a few of these children that resonated with her but none shone as brightly as the one they called Sheppard.  MajorJohnSheppard, the now GeneralJohnSheppard, never quite realised how special he was, how unique.  Even after DrCarsonBeckett had unlocked the potential she felt buzzing somewhere under the surface of some of the other children, GeneralJohnSheppard - John, as she was sometimes bold enough to think of him - was a shining light, a beacon that called to her, that soothed her.

Her creators would have disregarded these people as worthless - the small band of them that showed up two years into Atlantis’ second life had, in fact, done just that - but she came to recognise them as resourceful, innovative, kind and, above all, worthy.

She mourned their losses with them, she celebrated in their victories and applauded their ingenuity.   Atlantis lost count over the years of the number of times that she felt like hope was lost but each and every time, these children kept her floating, even kept her flying.  

DrRodneyMcKay was a worthy caretaker, even if sometimes he did not take enough care of himself.  She watched him, him and the others like him, toil away on her systems and subroutines, keeping her in working order and bringing parts of her that she had thought lost forever back to life.  She owed them all so much.  She did what little she could to help.  Even in GeneralJohnSheppard she could not make herself heard as she had been able to do with her creators but some, like DrRodneyMcKay and DrRadekZelenka got close enough to understanding her that it almost felt like she could speak again.

Atlantis was happy.

Atlantis was loved.

In her own way, Atlantis loved these people too.

She watched with pride as their numbers swelled, with joy as the first child in millenia crawled through her halls.  She watched with amusement as these children danced around each other, couplings forming and breaking up seemingly at random.  Human nature remained beyond her understanding in many ways.  GeneralJohnSheppard and DrRodneyMcKay were JohnandRodney in her databanks long before they formed an official coupling of their own.  She did not know why it had taken them so long to form a bond but had rejoiced with the rest of her people when they did.

As her people thrived, every goodbye was matched with a welcome - new faces flooding into the city to replace the old.  It didn’t lessen the sorrow to watch the people she had come to love leave but it made it somewhat bearable.  DrRadekZelenka walked through the astria porta for the last time a decade after he had arrived.  He was one of the lucky ones, retiring back to Earth whole and healthy but it didn’t make the hurt of his loss any less.  TeylaEmmagan and RononDex spent more and more time out of the city as the years progressed, helping to pull the Pegasus Galaxy together, to unite them all, make them stronger.  Atlantis was proud of them both, could clearly see the changes that time had wrought in them since their first journey through her astria porta and while not all of those changes came from a good place, she knew that they were the better for them.

Through each loss, she sought comfort in GeneralJohnSheppard and DrRodneyMcKay, in JohnandRodney, but she always knew that inevitability would catch up with them all.

Her people filled the porta chamber to the brim, the waves of emotions that she could feel from those that reverberated with her matched her own.  Happiness that JohnandRodney had lived long enough to say goodbye at a time of their own choosing, joy that they were leaving together, greatfulness that they were not leaving Pegasus, hopefulness that they would not leave it too long before their first visit and, underneath all of the positive emotions, a selfish sort of sorrow.  

She watched as GeneralJohnSheppard and DrRodneyMcKay wound their way through the crowd towards the astria porta.  She could sense the sorrow in them both and it was almost enough for her to sever the connection between her clavis and the astria porta but underneath the sorrow, the fear, was happiness, hope and, above all else, love.

Atlantis would miss them but she wouldn’t grieve them - she had been spared that pain. If a city could smile, she would be smiling now.  A very few times in the past dozen years Atlantis had overridden her own programming for the betterment of her people; ringing out the alarms as DrRodneyMcKay had suffered a potentially fatal heart attack alone in his labs five years ago had been the last such instance.  Each breach of her programming brought with it a massive effort and a significant power drain but sometimes the need overwhelmed the circumstances.

As the astria porta activated, Atlantis found the file she was looking for and the opening chords of Johnny Cash singing “We’ll Meet Again” filled the city.

Atlantis disregarded the general confusion and concentrated on the soft upward twitching of the lips of GeneralJohnSheppard and the open mouthed gaping of DrRodneyMcKay.  

GeneralJohnSheppard reached a hand out to brush against one of her pillars.  “Love you too, girl,” he whispered.

“Did you know she could do that?” DrRodneyMcKay was looking wildly around the space as if he expected a ghostly vision of Atlantis to appear before him.

Before GeneralJohnSheppard could answer, Atlantis switched the music to  Con Te Partirò.  DrRodneyMcKay’s eyes teared up immediately and Atlantis wished that she did have a body to hug him. “Atlantis, God,” he said thickly, “John, can you - we need to - just think of the possibilities...we need to…”

“We need to go,” GeneralJohnSheppard held his hand out to Rodney.  “Teyla and Ronon are waiting on us.  Come on, say goodbye.”

Atlantis watched them walk through the astria porta and knew that they would be OK.  

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Oh my God, the series is finished!!!!!!!!
> 
> Links to the songs mentioned:[We'll Meet Again](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KodNFsP6r88) and [Con Te Partiro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVUHHW1tJYA)
> 
> As always, you can find me on [Tumblr](http://buffycuddlespigs.tumblr.com)
> 
> Oh, and according to the stargate wiki, astria porta is the Ancient name for the startgate and clavis is the Ancient name for the DHD. In case, like me, you wondered!


End file.
